


Confession

by Penny_P



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space 9
Genre: Episode Related, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-06-25 20:40:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19753435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Penny_P/pseuds/Penny_P
Summary: At the end of DS9 season 4 episode "For the Cause," Kasidy Yates returns to Deep Space 9 to face Captain Sisko and the consequences of her involvement with the Maquis.





	Confession

**Author's Note:**

> The original of this story was submitted to the Strange New Worlds contest, and rightly rejected. For some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to write it in second person and it was much wordier. I've returned it to first person and trimmed it a bit, and I think it works better. This is the only DS9 fiction I ever attempted.

Oh, Ben Sisko. Look at you, standing there with your eyes full of hurt and hope. You want an explanation. I betrayed you, professionally and personally, and yet you stand there hoping I can tell you something that will prove you wrong. I duped you, I helped the Maquis get you off station so they could steal the replicators and you know that, and still you hope that there will be something I can say to make it all right again.

Oh, my dearest heart, no. Nothing I can say will change what’s happened. But maybe there is something I can say that will change the future.

I could tell you that it started before I knew you and that would be the truth. And it started so slowly, in such little steps, that I didn’t see the pathway until I was halfway down it.

It started, I think, with Tom Paris. That troubled young man who spent three months working for me before I ever met you. He’d been kicked out of Starfleet and hadn’t held a regular job since, but when he was sober he was the best pilot I had ever seen. I gave him a chance and told him that if he turned up drunk even once, he was off the Xhosa, no appeal. And he stayed sober for eighty-seven days, until we docked at Logil IV and heard the news: the Federation and Cardassia had signed a treaty. I actually felt relieved and commented to Paris that perhaps this meant no more disruptions on the trade routes from the intermittent skirmishes that had plagued the sector for years.

Paris didn’t answer you and he didn’t return to the ship at the end of his leave. I sent one of the crew out to check the bars. Sure enough, he retrieved Paris from one of the seediest dives in the port, so drunk I was almost afraid he might die from alcohol poisoning, but when I was sure he would live, I had him brought to the wardroom and started pouring black coffee into him.

“Why, Paris?,” I asked him, sadly because I had so hoped he wouldn’t put me in this position. 

He smiled, an unpleasant smile that held no humor. His words were heavily slurred. “I’s jus’ celebratin’, Cap’n.”

“Celebrating what?”

“The treaty. The wunnerful treaty. There’ll be peace in our time, again.” He chuckled. “’S true, you know. History repeats itself. They think they can buy peace this way, but they’re wrong.”

“What are you talking about?”

“History, my dear Captain Yates.” With a drunken grace, he straightened his shoulders and looked at me directly, if blearily, in the eye. “Appeasement never solves anything. As Neville Chamberlain. Ask –“ His lecture was interrupted by a hiccup, and he seemed to lose his train of thought. “The Cardies won’t be satisfied with the border worlds. They’re just an appetizer.”

“I still don’t understand, Paris.” And I really didn’t, but his words troubled me. During his time on the Xhosa, he had kept to himself, occasionally indulging in cynicism but little else. In just a few sentences, he demonstrated more passion than in the preceding three months.

He looked confused, then said, “Oh. You don’t know. The Federation signed over all the border worlds to the Cardassians. Jus’ like that. Yesterday, border worlds, you belonged to us; today you belong to them. ‘S all very neat.”

“That can’t be right,” I protested. I couldn’t believe it. “The Federation wouldn’t do that.”

“It did. The Cardies promised to treat ‘em nice.” He laughed shortly. “God help ‘em all.”

I hesitated. I’d never met a Cardassian at that point, and while there were stories about them, but I always assumed they were exaggerated, the way most gossip is. “It might no be so bad,” I finally said. “They may welcome new colonies.”

“New colonies? Yeah. New colonists?” The ugly smile returned. “The Cardassians have a different definition of sentient life than we do. If it’s not cold-blooded and scaly, it’s not sentient.”

“That’s the worst kind of bigotry, Paris.”

“Me, or them? I’m tellin’ you, Cap’n, it’s true.” Suddenly his eyes seemed haunted. “My …I knew someone who was a guest of the Cardassians once. They told him. They think we’re animals, not deserving of respect.”

“Maybe so.” I looked at him again, and I hated seeing so much promise being slowly washed away. Suddenly I wasn’t angry with him anymore. “I told you, Paris, that if you got drunk even once, you were fired.”

He rose unsteadily to his feet. “Yeah, I know. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. Thish was a good berth.”

As he lurched toward the door, I said, ‘What are you going to do?”

He turned back. “Well, here’s what I think. Sooner or later, there’s going to be fighting. The Cardies will want more, and someone isn’t gonna want to give it to them. So I plan to find me a nice, deep hole and stay comfortably drunk until it’s all over.”

He left the ship without a fuss and I never saw him again. But a few months later I heard he’d been arrested for being one of the Maquis - terrorists, according to the Federation but to themselves, freedom fighters. The rumor was he’d signed on as a mercenary to pay his bar tab, and that was sadly easy to believe. But there are easier ways to earn money, especially for someone who professed to be a coward and a drunk, and I began to wonder.

Or perhaps I could tell you about the time I was on my normal route, with a cargo of agricultural implements and replacement parts for desalinators intended for Cestus III. It was a perfectly harmless inventory; if there’s anyone who can use a hay baler as a weapon of mass destruction, they’ve kept it a secret. But I tried to save time by crossing the DNA, and a Cardassian patrol stopped us and demanded to search the Xhosa.

It was ridiculous, and I told them so. They could have scanned us thoroughly without boarding. But they insisted and I didn’t want to cause trouble, and I allowed them on board. Three glinns beamed over, each holding a phaser rifle at the ready. By now, I’d met Cardassians but these were the first to be pointing weapons at me. “I’m Captain Yates – “

“Stand there,” the glinn said, keeping the rifle aimed at my head. His eyes flicked over me once and dismissed me immediately.

He nodded at his two companions, who let their rifles hang loose as they raised tricorders and began scanning the ship. Within moments, one of them grunted, knelt, and ripped a panel off the nav station. They thought they had discovered contraband and were clearly disappointed when all they found in the compartment were tools for emergency repairs and a few spare circuits. One of them twisted the cover off its hinges.

“Hey,” I said, starting forward. “It’s got a latch. You don’t have to break it.”

The tip of the phaser rifle pushed hard against my shoulder, shoving me back into place. The glinns said nothing, apparently content that his message had been understood.

They spent two hours on the Xhosa, scanning and ripping and scattering. For two hours, I had to stand silently on my own bridge, enduring the scrutiny of the glinn and impotent to protect your ship. And as the time passed, I realized he was looking at me the same way I might look at a cockroach: curious, disgusted, and above all, superior.

In the end they left; no one harmed, no cargo confiscated – just a mess and a lot of minor damage. I never reported it because there was nothing to report; inspections are often messy. But that encounter shook me. It validated what Paris said. The Cardassians certainly hadn’t seen me, a Human, as worth of either respect or courtesy.

Perhaps I should tell you about my friend Gann Jilan, the portmaster of Daelen VI. Before it was ceded to the Cardassians, it was a regular stop on my route; the colony was heavily dependent on trade, especially for food. Once it had been a predominantly Human mining colony, but once the Cardassians annexed Bajor, Bajoran refugees streamed to join the settlement, and now a large portion of the population carried the blood of both species. The L-class planet was mineral-rich but soil-poor, and the settlers decided that they would invest in the mines and trade for food, mostly from Vennix Prime, an agricultural settlement which was not so far away.

I frequently made stops between the two and over the years, I came to know Portmaster Gann, a Bajoran, well. Whenever I was in port I stopped in his office to say hello, and he usually invited me home to dinner with his family. There was no greater hospitality on Dalen IV than sharing a meal, because food was so hard to come by, and I valued the friendship he and his wife offered.

The last time I made orbit around Daelen was the first time since the Treaty was signed. The difference was immediately evident in the amount of red tape needed simply to get permission to orbit. The Xhosa was boarded and inspected, and the transfer of cargo was supervised by armed glinns, but it all went off without incident.

When I was free, you stopped by Gann’s office as you usually did. He was at his desk and he looked drawn and thin. No Daelenite is plump, but Gann was almost gaunt. When he saw it was me, his eyes flicked to the Cardassian guard seated by the wall. “Captain Yates,” he said formally. He’d called me “Kasidy” for years.

I understood, or at least, I thought I did. “Portmaster, it’s good to see you again. Am I intruding?”

“Not at all.” He seemed relieved I caught his cue. “This is Glinn Kadat. He … monitors the office from time to time.”

I had the distinct impression the Cardassian sat in that chair and watched Gann all day. “I see.” With a cool nod, you acknowledged the introduction. Kadat didn’t bother to respond.

The situation suddenly became awkward. I came with a slab of real Italian bacon from the New Tuscany colony, wrapped in brown paper. I coddled that meat for weeks, because Gann’s wife, Leora, had been enthralled when I described it during my last visit. I had promised to bring her one. Now feared the Cardassian wouldn’t understand I as bringing a gift to a friend; he would assume I was bringing a bribe to an official. Still, I really wanted Gann to have the bacon.

“I have the meat your wife purchased,” I said carefully, hoping he would catch on. “As ordered.”

Gann flinched slightly, and the glinn laughed. Still, Gann accepted the package. “Thank you.”

“Will you keep it?” Kadat asked. His expression was odd, almost leering. “Or will you send it on to her.”

Send it on? The Cardassian made it sound as if Leora had left Gann, and I couldn’t imagine that. They were such a devoted couple. But Gann looked unhappy as he answered. “No. I paid for it, so I will eat it myself.”

It would have been wiser to stay silent, but I had to ask. “What’s happened?”

The glinn finally stood. “Don’t be modest Gann. Tell her.” He grinned maliciously. “There aren’t many Bajoran mutts that would interest our planetary governor. Your Leora must be special to be selected as a comfort woman for Tanek himself.”

Gann, stiffened, and the flash of shame that crossed his face humbled me. I had heard stories of Bajoran women taken forcibly to serve their Cardassian overseers, but until now I hadn’t believed it. No wonder he looked so worn down. He said quietly, “Thank you for delivering this personally.”

I nodded in reply and turned to go. Your throat was too clogged to speak even if you had known what to say. But he stopped you with a single sentence. “Captain Yates, don’t you want a receipt?”

As I turned, I realized my mistake. Any good captain gets a receipt for a purchase delivery. I should have thought of that. Now you had to answer correctly, not just for me but for Gann as well. As calmly as I could, I said “Yes, I nearly forgot. Thank you.”

Gann set the package on his desk and picked up a padd, making a quick entry. “It’s a different format than in the past,” he said, eyes focused on his work. “But I’m sure it will suit for your record keeping.”

“Will it download as easily as your old format?” you asked him casually. There was no old format – there was only an exchange of gifts between friends, but the Cardassian would not have believe that.

“If your systems are compatible with Cardassian syntax, there shouldn’t be a problem.“ He handed the padd to Kadat rather than to me. “It’s a very efficient application.”

Kadat read the padd and then gave it to me. He let his hand touch mine in the process, and his eyes drifted over me slowly, narrowing to slits. “That’s a stiff price for a hunk of meat.”

I quelled an impulse to shiver; I felt certain he was imagining you as his own comfort woman. “It’s the right price for the effort,” you told him coolly and nodded to him in dismissal. He smiled.

“Good day, Portmaster,” I said to Gann.

“Goodbye, Captain,” he replied, and he looked directly into your eyes as he spoke. It wasn’t a careless choice of words. I heard the instruction in his voice and saw the despair in his eyes. He did not want to see me again.

I could tell you all this, Ben, but really what did it all add up to? I know, I know, the Cardassians shamed a good man so deeply they broke something inside him, but I have no proof. And at that moment, I had nothing but my own instincts. And my instincts said I had to do something. Something.

That’s what prompted me to go to Vennix, which was still on the Federation side of the border, but might as well have been on the other side of the galaxy from Daelen. The Cardassians shut down trade, saying it would supply Daelen from Cardassian sources. Lightyears weren’t the correct way to measure distance any longer.

Close as it was to the new border, I had a hunch Vennix might be a haunt of the Maquis. I dropped into a few in a few bars, left a few hints, and in a day, I made contact. I agreed to provide supplies - medical supplies, food supplies. No weapons. No sabotage.

That was enough, they said, and I believed them. Oh, Ben, we had only just met and I managed to convince myself that this wasn’t really a problem. It was so infrequent that it seemed unlikely you would ever have to find out about it. I honestly, and foolishly, thought that I could keep this a secret until the Federation finally realized its mistake and embraced the Maquis. I actually convinced myself that was inevitable. And then, everything would be all right between us. Love isn’t blind, but it is a master of rationalization.

Or, I could just tell you about this last assignment. When I took the job with Bajor and moved to DS9, I told them I was out, that I couldn’t risk it any longer. But I hadn’t realized that no one ever truly leaves the Cause. They talked me into a delivery of medical supplies just a few days before, but you know that. I thought that was the last one, but they summoned me one more time.

I got my instructions in the cargo bay after normal hours. It was all very cloak-and-dagger; I couldn’t see who it was and they were using a voice filter that obscured gender. Obviously it was Commander Eddington, but I didn't know that then. “We have a job for you.”

“Nope. Not now. I’m just back from a delivery and this isn’t a good time for me to take chances.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” the voice said. Even through the filter, the sarcasm was heavy. “I’ll tell the colonists on Daelen IV that its’s an inconvenient time for them to be starving.”

That got my attention. “What? What about Daelen?”

“You haven’t heard, then? The Cardassians have cut off all non-Union ships. There are no more food imports to the colonists.”

“But –“ They’ll starve, I nearly said. But they are already starving, according to the voice.

I remembered Gann as I’d last seen him, his bony shoulders slumped and his eyes dead. It wouldn’t take long to starve them all. _Only_ six hundred thousand, if you looked at it one way. _Six hundred thousand_ if you looked at it differently.

I made my decision. “What do you want me to do?”

“Nothing much. We need you to take your ship and go to the coordinates we will send to you. Wait there for thirty-six hours. If no one makes contact with you, come back.”

“What will I be carrying?”

“Medical supplies. The usual.”

I shook my head. “No. It’s too dangerous. Captain Sisko – we’re close. He’ll be watching me. I told them I couldn’t start any assignments from here.”

“Don’t worry. Everything will go according to plan.”

There was just enough smugness in the filtered tone to tip you off. “Sacrifice fly,” I said aloud.

“What?”

“You want me to hit a sacrifice fly. You want me to draw Ben away.” Whoever you are, you must know him well, you thought. You know that he’ll follow me, his heart in his throat, to find out whether or not I have betrayed him.

“I don’t recognize the metaphor, but yes, we expect that Captain Sisko will follow you. We need him to be away from the station.”

I closed my eyes, because suddenly all I could see was Ben’s face. I could still hear his voice and feel his hands. “I won’t do it. You don’t know what you are asking.”

“We can get industrial replicators into the hands of the resistance on Daelen,” the voice said quickly. “Enough to feed the entire population.”

I sighed, and my shoulders probably hunched. “You’re not being fair.”

“All’s fair in love and war,” the voice said. “And we are at war, Kasidy. We are very much at war.”

And the voice was right. It wasn’t declared, it wasn’t even recognized by any of the authorities I had ever respected, but it was a war. They just didn’t know it yet.

They were asking me to give up – not just risk, but _give up_ – everything that was important to me. I knew their strategy would work – I knew you would follow me, Ben, driven by the need to know if I had betrayed the Federation and, even more to the point, you. There were only two possible outcomes – you would arrest me yourself and send me to prison, or I would escape and become a fugitive. Either way, I would lose my career and lose you.

But then, oddly, I thought of Tom Paris. Wounded, dissolute, self-absorbed – and yet he joined the Maquis. Mercenary or not, he made a choice.

There is a moment when you have to decide how you are going to live. Whether you are going to be true to the definitions of right and wrong you have always believed in, or whether you are going to take the easy way out and let your definitions adjust themselves to fit the times. That was my moment. I knew the treaty was wrong. The Cardassians were still an enemy to be resisted, no matter what the personal cost. It was the only way I could live with myself.

So I did it. I lured you and Odo away from the station long enough for Eddington - I still didn’t realize it was him - and his cell to steal the replicators and disappear. You figured it out, though, and went after him, leaving me there in the Badlands. I could have made a run for it, but in the midst of losing so much, I had to try to salvage one little bit of the future.

I came back, and I came back with every intention of telling you all about it. And now you are standing in front of me, Ben Sisko, with hope and hurt in your eyes, waiting for me to tell you something that will make it all right again. But I suddenly realize there is nothing to say. Things like trust and honor and conscience rely on a language of faith, not words. I need to believe that my actions, then and now, speak for themselves.

I’m going to prison, I know that, but it’s what comes after that I care about. Either you love me enough or you don’t. It’s too late for anything else.

“I’ll be back,” I finally tell you.

“I’ll be here,” you reply.

-the end -


End file.
